Bruno
NEW ORLEANS - The City of Kenner and the private lawyers it hired are at the helm of a class action lawsuit against video streaming services Netflix and Hulu that accuses the services of not paying Louisiana municipalities their dues for having Louisiana customers.
According to documents filed in the Jefferson Parish District Court on Jan. 22, defendants Netflix and Hulu violate the 2008 Consumer Choice for Television Act by not paying the plaintiff its franchisee fee, which is 5% of the video service s gross revenue within that municipality. The lawsuit is similar to others filed around the country by government officials who are paying private lawyers a percentage of whatever is recovered.
Fri, Jan 29th 2021 6:35am
Karl Bode
A handful of municipalities in Georgia have filed a lawsuit (pdf) against Hulu, Netflix, and other streaming providers in a ham-fisted bid to saddle customers with cable franchise fees. Such franchise fees were common in the cable TV era. In large part because such cable providers had a physical presence in local municipalities. They utilized public rights of way, hung their coaxial cable on city-owned utility poles, often had local offices or broadcast hubs, and in some instances provided public access television.
As a result, traditional cable companies struck local franchise agreements requiring they pay the local community for the right to access public property and resources. Since streaming providers (usually) have no physical presence in the states they re doing business, those fees didn t transfer over to the streaming industry. Enter these Georgia towns, which filed a lawsuit not only claiming that